[MASSIVE SPOILERS] Let's Talk Mass Effect

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Ok while I think we all want the Indoctrination theory to be true so we know we didn't get worthless ending and a meaningless 90+hrs of gameplay. Think about what this means from our standpoint. Yes, it could be the most awesome mind fuck a video game and it's developer has ever pulled. But it also means Bioware/EA have deliberately given us an incomplete game so that they can charge us more to finish it.

This worries me. We've already paid 60USD for this game, DLC averages about 10-15 per, for something like Arrival, Shadow Broker, and Javik. So for just a simple ending, what might be the actual ending to the game we're gonna have to pay another $10. This is further emphasized by the DLC comment the game ends on. This is robbery; even if Indoctrination Theory is real, and I doubt it is/was (might be now depending on how Bioware plays this off). I want the actual ending to my game with my game, not with DLC.

Even if BioWare provides an epilogue through DLC, I don't care. An ending that leaves much and more to my imagination is as compelling to me as one that's spelled out. This thread alone was worth the money.

I'm not saying that the game isn't worth $60 I'm just saying I don't like the idea of being charged an additional $10 just for an ending. That's a very slippery slope. Either we're going to get an ending through DLC or Bioware has decided to make the Trilogy into a Saga. That would actually make me stupid happy if we could get one more game out of Mass Effect.

RE: Thrax's two posts - those are two incredible points that I hadn't considered. Shooting Illusive Man with the renegade option mind-tripped me so hard that BOTH TIMES it popped up, I didn't go for it. Anderson died, and then I was killed. I had to re-load and go through the entire sequence again.

I'm about 95% convinced of the indoctrination theory at this point. There's just too much evidence. Too much about it that makes it right.

It really blows my mind to consider what the game does in its final hour. The mind games it plays with you, especially if you roll paragon, is substantial. The renegade option of shooting Illusive Man, the colored choices at the end pushing you from the destroy option, offering a third, harder to get option that doesn't truly bring a best end, trusting the child we know acts for the reapers because we feel Shepard's guilt... This stuff is incredible.

I can't believe a video game did this to me. This is the definition of immersive. We feel indoctrinated ourselves, because as we played it, we had no idea that this manipulation was happening to us.

And I would agree, I don't feel that the ending is incomplete, and I'm glad that closure is left to the imagination. It was the only real way they could end a game like this. Every person playing these games built their own stories around their own Shepards. It's practically impossible to make a concrete, detailed ending while appeasing all of these gamers. I'm fine with what they've done.

Though you're also right, @koreish. It's obvious by the ending message (and it's EA we're talking about) that they're going to milk this ending out for gamers via DLC. I don't want them to do it, but they've already confirmed that they're going to do it. I'm not going to play these DLCs. I'm keeping my ending intact.

If they release more gameplay and story beyond Shepard waking up from indoctrination and try to charge for it I think the backlash from it will be stronger than the rage they're already dealing with. Unfortunately this probably won't stop people from paying for it, even those who would be truly furious about it. Sad to think that what is potentially the most ingenious thing they've done with the series might also double as a way to exploit their customers (again). If this theory turns out to be true and they release the rest of the story for free it might be enough to win me back over my disgust with the multiplayer setup. If they charge for it however they will only have solidified my decision, I'll just watch it on youtube.

If it's a free DLC and they didn't include the ending proper so that people could make their decisions; possibly wrong decisions. That would actually be a fucking brilliant move but again, I doubt that EA would allow for free DLC. Places like Xbox Live charge you just to post DLC, so the chances of it actually being a free DLC is pretty slim.

1. Only encountered TIM at the end at which point he killed himself.2. Jacob and Miranda left Cerberus on their own. Liara never even met Miranda.3. Modin* would have cured the genophage had I not shot him.4. Wrex has been dead since half way through ME1 and Grunt was never a Krogan leader.5. Garrus don't give a fuck about C-Sec.6. Anderson was never appointed to the council in the first place and neither was Ashley.7. Joker wants robo-babies or some shit but I wouldn't say he brags about it.8. Tali helped unite the Geth and Quarians.9. Thane got stabbed. Jack was nowhere near him.10. Liara is forever alone and Kelly is so dead it's not even funny.11. Nope

He died but nothing about him being on the council was right. I'll give you half a right for calling Anderson's death if you want. (Unless indoctrination theory). Not sure what you mean by iEdi but I don't remember him saying anything like "hey check out how awesome my "something related to EDI" is"

Yeah, I'm only seeing two - Mordin cures the genophage, and Joker sexytimes with EDI.

Illusive Man doesn't slip awayJacob and Miranda both left Cerberus, neither come with youGrunt doesn't lead anythingGarrus /quit C-SecNobody replaces anybody on the council, and Anderson doesn't die on Earth, if we're being technicalI don't really know about the Tali and the geth one; I know she kills herself if you save the geth and aren't pro enough to talk her out of it, but I don't know about the other sideThane dies incredibly sadlyLiara is an on-again-off-again bitch that asks if you want to stay together when you meet in the beginning, then ignores you until the end, when she acts like you're just friends.

All solid predictions, but I am interested in your fourth - are you calling the Anderson and Tali ones correct?

Matt, there is a known bug with the Liara LI storyline in which she forgets all about LotSB rekindled romance.Also, Tali doesn't kill herself (or even try) if your Reputation is high enough. Legion sacrifices himselfGrunt leads a pack of commandos when you meet the Rachni Queen again

*I* really hope that "Man, we got you guys good. It was indoctrination, guys. Check out these threads." DLC was all part of the plan and is explained in April.

I cannot possibly imagine that if it was really indoctrination, they will charge for the remainder of the story. I CAN imagine that if it wasn't. I guess we'll see, but I'm really gunning for the "my God, they're bloody geniuses" angle here.

I recently spent more time thinking about this whole ending thing and have come to this characteristically sarcastic conclusion:

After three games and more than 90 hours of a grand narrative, convincing characters and superb writing, the only logical explanation for the last 30 minutes must be incompetency. Nothing else could be the truth.

Some time ago there was a thread on (I think) Kotaku that was supposedly made by a writer for Bioware who claimed that the last part of the game was written solely by Casey Hudson and one other high level member of Bioware with no imput from any other writers. It was a rather detailed and believable complaint about the writer's problems with the way it happened and what resulted from that meeting. The thread was deleted a day or two after it showed up. Was it deleted for being created by a troll or deleted to save said writer's job? We may never know.

There was another such thread on the Penny Arcade forums. Essentially it boils down to the fact that someone said every other piece of writing was pushed through peer review for accuracy etc, but Casey took the ending and ran with it without any sort of review.

It wasn't a wholesale condemnation, but basically said Casey was too smart and thought everyone would "get it"...then went on to describe some of the most badass plans in history.

Edit: Apparently the "original" ending involved dark matter and how the Reapers were attempting to stop it from destroying things in the end...and you had to make that sort of choice.

Just finished ME3 and loved the ending. Skimmed this long thread, sure I've missed things.

Anyway, I picked synthesis. It's where the story was going for my Shep from the beginning. So, maybe that's why I have no problem with it. I've read this story before, but I like the way Mass Effect played it out.

What made a nice spin for me in the Mass Effect universe, though, was the way they screwed with the scale of things. Every time the story gave you a perspective, you later learned it was wrong by another factor of 10 or 1000. Protheans were the precursors - but no, they were just the last cycle of who knows how many. There's Saren, and he's bad - but he's just a thrall to Sovereign. Sovereign's pretty nasty - but wait, he's just one of a horde waiting in dark space. Oh shi--

Here's a too-long-for-a-comment bit of fan fiction that explains why I loved the ending:

Well, the synthetics came to regret that decision. Maybe they were starved for innovative input after destroying their creators, maybe they learned empathy too late, whatever. The universe sucked for a few million years as they waited for life to reboot itself.

So, in the meantime, they decided: Never again. They would manage the continued existence of sentient organic life in the galaxy. And, they decided to do this by pruning off the advanced top end - both organics and their current round of synthetic creations - before things got unstable enough to risk permanent galactic extinction or sterilization. Kill a few billion periodically to save trillions in the future.

Now, the problem with this stable state is stagnation. Nothing ever progresses beyond the billion-year-old peak of development that the Reaper synthetics represent. On and on until the heat death of the universe. But, as fearfully awesome as they are, they'll never get any more interesting. They'll never leave to explore other galaxies or check out neighboring universe branes or whatever.

So, without a stabilizing force, life in the galaxy (ie. chaos) would recreate the conditions to self-sterilize by way of their creations. But, with a too-successful stabilizing force (ie. order), nothing ever progresses.

Choose to destroy or control the Reapers, and you've probably just started the clock again on galactic sterilization.

But, consider synthesis. Find a way to combine the creative organic with the patient synthetic. Keep the organics from burning themselves out, but harness the innovation and progress as a slow burn. Imagine developments more awesome than Reapers, rebuilding not only all the Mass Relays that were blown out, but inventing more impressive ways to defeat space and time. Maybe the next level doesn't even need Mass Relays and new intelligent vessels could create cross-galaxy conduits. Adventure!

Anyway, if you made it to the end here, thanks for reading my rambling. Now I go to bed.

So, you say Saren is bad, and then you pick Synergy, the exact same thing he was trying to do...

TL;DR: Saren was a punk, and got punked. Shepard changed the Reapers' minds about organics by getting the galaxy together and shoving Crucible straight up their Citadel ass.

I think synthesis is what Saren wanted to achieve, but he failed. He wasn't strong enough, was too single-minded, didn't value life in general, and was very speciesist where he did. He never convinced the Reapers that his cycle of organic life was anything special. So they just smiled and nodded and indoctrinated him into the tool they needed to wrap things up for the next go around.

Shepard, on the other hand - at least mine, anyway - managed to: Unite an entire galaxy of organics against the Reapers, something even Javik admitted had never happened before. He ended centuries' old wars, made the Genophage cure happen, and brought a mini-synthesis to the Geth and Quarian. He never submitted to the Reapers, and proved that he was slowly but surely learning how to destroy them, even if it was one at a time.

Like the glowy kid said, old solutions wouldn't work any more - Shepard had convinced them through his actions. The last cycle had almost gotten the best of them, and now the current one had thanks to Shepard. If they retreated and tried again to maintained status quo, then the next cycle would have found Liara's beacons with the legend of Shepard and really beaten the crap out of them.

So, unlike Saren, Shepard was the real deal and came as a complete surprise to the Reapers. Sure, what he managed to do was to cap off millions of years of effort across cycle after cycle of failed organic civilizations - but he, unlike Saren, actually did it.

Oh and another thing I've been reading: The Mass Relays get destroyed in any ending, right? That seems pretty bleak. Everyone's isolated.

Except, remember that the Reapers have superior FTL drives. Those can get them around the galaxy just a few months or years, which is why destroying the Mass Relays wasn't a solution for defeating the Reapers. And they built the Mass Relays to start with - in fact, I'd posit that the Relays were what they used to sterilize the galaxy, way back when. They can build those again.

So, in the synthesis ending, organics are now merged with the synthetics and have access to their FTL and technology. Everyone who's stranded has hope. It's not just homeworlds like Earth that will get rebuilt - an entire galaxy-spanning civilization can be rebuilt in the organic-synthetic partnership.

Unless of course you picked the right choice which was to destroy them. Synthesis is what the Reapers wanted you to do, you're indoctrinated Imochard.

So, you destroy the Reapers, all other synthetics, the Citadel, and the Relays. That sets galactic civilization back by thousands of years. Everyone's stuck in their own star systems, with no galactic trade to support their economies. That'll be like quitting heroin cold-turkey.

In a few hundred years, some of the advanced races recover, reinvent FTL and primitive Relays from Reaper corpses. And, in a few hundred years more, someone spawns synthetics that destroy their creators and go on to sterilize the galaxy. The Quarians were just ahead of their time. Eventually, you're back to a new form of Reapers, and the cycle renews. At least, that's my interpretation of the Mass Effect cosmology.

But, bah: I've seen the other endings now, and am no longer as happy as I was before. Reusing the same video assets, but with just some recoloring, is a really cheap production trick. I don't think I realized just how bad it was.

I'm guess I'm just being extra nice to the story, and filling in details for the devs. Like, I could've sworn that Joker limps more off the ship in other endings, but in the synthesis ending he's shiny green and helps EDI off the wreck without breaking his own legs. And, don't remember any of the characters I brought with me in my squad showing up in any of the endings, so that never ticked me off.

But, I'm probably just seeing things. I think everyone would have been happier with totally independent sequences for each of the big finales.

So, you destroy the Reapers, all other synthetics, the Citadel, and the Relays. That sets galactic civilization back by thousands of years. Everyone's stuck in their own star systems, with no galactic trade to support their economies. That'll be like quitting heroin cold-turkey.

Well, and then you see all the Relays explode. If that was a dream / indoctrination, all bets are off and I'll just shrug because anything could have happened.

But, assuming the Relays are gone, I'm extrapolating the rest. I mean, imagine Earth tomorrow if any mode of transportation faster or more buoyant than a horse blew up this afternoon - and we didn't have the technology to start rebuilding trade routes immediately.

In a few hundred years, some of the advanced races recover, reinvent FTL and primitive Relays from Reaper corpses. And, in a few hundred years more, someone spawns synthetics that destroy their creators and go on to sterilize the galaxy. The Quarians were just ahead of their time. Eventually, you're back to a new form of Reapers, and the cycle renews. At least, that's my interpretation of the Mass Effect cosmology.

First of all, it's mentioned somewhere, though I can't remember where, that the Asari were close to understanding how the relays worked. Without them and all the set backs that will cause as you've pointed out you can be sure the effort to fully understand the relays and build new ones will be the main driving force of their entire race and it won't be long before they succeed.

Secondly, after the creation of the Geth galactic law forbid creating other AIs and aside from EDI this was obeyed by every race. This was done with the idea of preventing exactly what you said "someone spawns synthetics that destroy their creators and go on to sterilize the galaxy" and this decision was made long before anyone even had any real knowledge of the Reapers. What this means is that the races that live in this cycle are intelligent enough and have the foresight to avoid making the same mistake whoever created the Reapers did. Even more reason that they won't make that mistake is that they have seen and survived the Reapers and they sure as hell aren't going to forget about it. The Krogan and Asari have lifespans of around 1000 years so even centuries later there will be those who survived the Reapers who will do everything in their power to prevent anyone from making new ones. Even the races with shorter lifespans who will be more likely to dismiss the Reapers as an ancient myth in a few hundred years will have the remains of Reapers all over their planets as proof that they're not and the possible consequences of creating synthetic life.

Basically travel and communication between races will have a major set back for awhile but I would guess for less than a century and I really think that after being the first cycle to ever survive the Reapers it's very unlikely that anything like them will ever be created again.